One Last Time (Loveless Brothers 5)

I still don’t like their origin story. No matter what, I’m always going to think it was a fucked up thing for Caleb to do.

But I also have to admit that I can’t help but like Thalia. For a twenty-two-year-old, she seems to have her shit fairly together, and you know what? She loves my brother.

Hard to fault that. I love the idiot too.

Before I can get out of the car, the screen door slams open and a puff of hot pink takes off like a rocket across the porch, down the stairs, and across the driveway.

I take a deep breath, get out of the car, and hope my nine-year-old niece can’t tell that Uncle Seth is feeling a little rough right now.

“There you are!” she says, skidding to a stop by the trunk of my car. “Guess what!”

“Chicken butt?”

Rusty gives me a look like I’ve just suggested she roll in sewage.

Note to self: chicken butt is no longer funny.

“No,” she says, that look still on her face. “We went to the hardware store yesterday! Uncle Levi is gonna help me do the construction but he said you and Uncle Caleb would be better for helping with the plans. Come on.”

Every Sunday, my mom hosts dinner at the house where we all grew up. All five of us are expected to attend Sunday Dinner if we’re able, and over the years that’s grown to include anyone else we’d like to invite — girlfriends, wives, best friends, you name it.

“Is your Uncle Caleb here yet?” I ask, opening my trunk and grabbing a basket covered with a tea towel, wedged between a first aid kit, emergency blanket, extra jacket, and pair of old-but-usable hiking boots, because you never know what you’ll need.

“No,” she says, walking backward while waving her arms around in circles. “Violet and June made name tags.”

“Name tags?” I echo, shutting the trunk.

I probably should have had one more cup of coffee. Maybe it won’t be too suspicious if I make some inside.

“So Thalia knows who everyone is,” she says, then pulls her jacket open.HELLO

My name is

RUSTY

- Daniel and Charlie’s daughter

- Knows skateboarding tricks“Do you?” I ask, and she looks down, then back up at me.

“Of course,” she says. “Come on. I got a ruler and a calculator and big paper and everything!”

Rusty turns, waving one puffy pink-jacketed arm for me to follow her. I lean into my car, grab the basket of scones, then remind myself that there are much worse things to be doing while hungover than helping a nine-year-old draw up plans for a trebuchet.

Right now she’s into unicorns, sparkles, and medieval siegecraft. Aren’t all third graders?

“Seth!” she shouts, already back on the front porch while I’m still standing by the trunk of my car. “Are you —"

“Hold your horses, kid, I’m coming,” I call back.

“I don’t have any horses.”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“I know, I was making a joke,” Rusty says as I clomp up the porch steps. “It was funny. What’s that?”

“Scones,” I say, flipping aside the tea towel I’ve got wrapped around them to show her. “There’s blueberry-lemon, cardamom-vanilla, and —”

She’s already taken one and bitten into it.

“ — Double chocolate chunk,” I finish.

“Mmmm,” she says, her mouth full, tiny crumbs flying out. “It’s good!”

“Thanks,” I say, dryly. “Save some for everyone else, will you?”

Rusty just grins at me with chocolate-covered teeth.The moment I walk into my mom’s house, at least two people are shouting at me. One’s my mom, telling me to close the door because she’s not paying to heat the outside — never mind that I’ve been inside for less than ten seconds — and the other is my sister-in-law Violet, asking what I want on my name tag.

“Does it matter what I want?” I call back, still standing by the front door, basket in hand.

“It’s a good starting place,” she says, over the general din as I hang my coat on the rack and take my shoes off, then toss them on the pile. Somewhere under the pile there’s a shoe bench, but I couldn’t tell you where.

I pass through the living room, where Daniel and Levi both give my basket of scones a suspicious look, and head into the kitchen where Violet and June, Levi’s fiance, are sitting at the kitchen table with Sharpies and name tags.

“You haven’t even done mine yet?” I ask, putting the basket down.

June glances at the basket, but doesn’t say anything.

“You just got here,” Violet says. “Everyone else got theirs when they arrived, too.”

“You did theirs,” I say, pointing at Caleb and Thalia’s name tags.

“They’re the guests of honor,” Violet says, straightening them. “Well, Thalia is. And I guess Caleb gets to bask in her reflected glow.”

“They’re still coming, right?” June asks. “We didn’t already scare them off somehow, did we?”

“This family? Never,” I say. “Who could possibly get scared off?”